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say it: DAWR-suhl
dorsal is an adjective meaning "belonging to or on or near the back or upper surface of an animal or organ or part". It is pronounced /ˈdɔɹsəl/ — DAWR-suhl. It carries 2 recorded senses.
belonging to or on or near the back or upper surface of an animal or organ or part
“the dorsal fin is the vertical fin on the back of a fish and certain marine mammals”
facing away from the axis of an organ or organism
“the abaxial surface of a leaf is the underside or side facing away from the stem”
biology
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for dorsal come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.